What We Can Learn from the South Carolina High School Incident

The anti-cop story of the week of course has been about the Richland County Deputy who was quickly fired after cell phone videos surfaced of him decentralizing a high school student who refused to obey his lawful commands and resisted arrest. Despite what the media says, the officer did not “body slam” the student. After asking the student to comply, he attempted to gently stand her up, at which point she began resisting and even punched him. The officer performed a decentralization, a relatively low-level of force on the use of force continuum and arrested her without injury to either party.

These stills from one of the cell-videos have been making their way around the internet:
The problem is the video LOOKED bad. Those of us in the real world understand that fights with the police are supposed to be one-sided. They aren’t supposed to be “fair,” dragging on five rounds as both parties are battered and bloody like in the movies. That’s why people don’t like this. Of course, we also understand police are trained to end fights quickly, because the longer a fight drags on, the higher the risk of someone being injured.

But that’s not what I’m writing about this. The use of force was appropriate – but it looked bad. And because of that, his cowardly boss caved to public pressure and thew him under the bus at record speed. It’s unbelievable an IA investigation could be conducted that fast. So, how can we as cops still do our jobs, especially in the schools, but keep situations like this from winding up on the 5 o’clock news?

Understand the police officer – school official dynamicSROs are thrown under the bus at a much higher rate than any other cop, at least in my experience. Even drug cops don’t get as many complains filed against them as SROs. Most school administrators have no idea how use of force works, most have never been in a real fight, and most are deathly afraid of being sued by some parent. Of course many of them seem to possess a liberal, moral superiority complex, and think they are smarter than you. They may have a master’s degree, but frankly, most of the ones I have dealt with completely lack any kind of street smarts. Now that’s a generalization, I realize some administrators do not fall into that category, but they seem to be the exception.

Regardless, most of them believe that you work for them. They probably don’t want officers in their schools to begin with, but they realize if you weren’t there, there would be no way they could keep some of the student in line. And then of course, they rely on you for security or deterrence against any kind of armed threat or mass shooter, because most have completely failed in addressing basic security lapses at their school.

In other words, most of these people don’t like you. Most cops are pretty self-less, willing to take a bullet for their brothers and sisters. But just because you work in the same office as the school administrators, do not be fooled into thinking they are on “your team.” To them, you are an outsider, a necessary evil. No matter how nice they may seem to your face, don’t trust them with your career, and don’t trust them to have your back. They are looking out for themselves and the school district. That may sound cynical, but it is reality. Accept it.

Use discretion – let school officials handle behavioral issues
Our job in the schools should be first and foremost to protect the safety of students, staff and visitors and then second, investigate criminal offenses. We should NOT be dealing with kids who are disruptive or won’t turn in their cell phones. Now South Carolina did every SRO a disfavor by making it illegal to disrupt class, and obviously such an environment was allowed to develop where school officials expected this SRO to address these kinds of issues. Regardless, we still have discretion as to the enforcement action we take.

If no one’s safety is in immediate danger, we can delay, or even walk away from things like this. Tell the teacher you’re willing to help talk to the student, but you’re not going to arrest them – and risk provoking a fight over a cell phone. Or tell the principal you will accompany him there to speak with the student in case the student becomes violent, but you won’t be jumping in unless the student becomes violent. In other words, it’s his school, so let the principal (or his “crisis intervention specialist”) deal with it.

If you walk away, the worst that happens is the student continues to interrupt class. When the bell rings, she is going to get up and leave. If it continues, the school can always suspend her – then if she shows up, you can actually arrest her for trespassing, and have a real charge.

Don’t give the student an audienceIf you have to arrest a student, if at all possible, clear out the room. Tell the teacher to take the students somewhere else for the rest of class, or at least into and down the hallway. For one, that takes all the cell phones out of there, but more importantly, it removes the audience that the bad student is showing off for. Peer pressure and seeking attention is huge at that age, and especially in this racially-charged time in our country, people in general seem to feel more empowered to resist or fight back against the police if someone is watching. Once the other students are removed, there is no one left to show off for. She’ll be more likely to talk with you, and if you do have to use force, the chances of a bystander being hurt joining the fight are greatly reduced.

Wait for backup, call a supervisorAgain, unless there is an immediate danger to someone’s life or limb, who cares if math class gets delayed a bit? The schools want to handle this with kid gloves, so handle it with kid gloves. Having more officers present is going to accomplish a number of things:
1) A student will hopefully realize fighting three officers is going to be a lot harder than fighting one officer.
2) It provides more witnesses on your side if things go south.
3) You’ll likely have to use less force and be less likely to be injured because you have more people to help control the suspect.
4) Another officer may be able to gain better rapport than you with the student and avoid a fight altogether.
5) It’s a lot harder for your coward boss to throw multiple officers under the bus than just one.

If you can, get a supervisor there when you’re dealing with this kind of thing in the schools – especially if there is the potential for a racial allegation. Yeah, it seems like a waste of time and it may piss him off – but what’s worse, a pissed off supervisor, or losing your job because the school admin doesn’t like how you handled it? Most supervisors are going to understand your request if you tell them you just want to CYA given all the BS that’s been going on around the country.

Record EVERYTHINGEveryone has a camera these days, so you might as well have one too. Notice how the videos of the SC incident all start where the officer grabs the student and up-ends her? He probably tried talking to her for a while first, but the media edits out those parts because it doesn’t help their sensationalist story line. When you record, you have a full version of what actually happened to defend yourself with.

Earlier this year I heard Lt. Stacey Geik give an excellent presentation called “Choreographing the Use of Force.” (available through Center Mass, Inc). Geik explained that when we go on a call, we have the potential to essentially make a “movie” which could potentially be released to the public someday. So use your audio/video to “set the stage” for someone who is going to watch it later on. For example, narrate your recording as you respond to the call: “The principal asked me to respond to room 100 to address a disruptive student. He is requesting that I bring her to the office and wants her removed from class.” If you’ve ever watched an episode of COPS, you’ve seen officers do this for the film crew. Just do the same for your own video/audio.

You can do this with your radio traffic. Think of the worst case scenario, for instance – you’re looking for a student who ran outside, threatening to kill himself. What if he charges you with a knife and you shoot him? Do you want your radio traffic to play on the nightly news: “I’m out with that student on the playground………shots fired” or “I’m going to be out with that student on the playground, who was threatening to kill himself. I’ve been advised he may be armed with a knife. I’m going to be checking his welfare.”

In the first example, people hear you found a kid who needed help on the playground and you shot him. The second one, people hear that you were trying to help a student, you knew he may be armed with a deadly weapon and that your intention was to help him. It shows people what you knew and what your intentions were before the incident went south. Unfortunately, when we try to explain why we acted a certain way, people sometimes think we are just trying to cover things up. I think this is an excellent habit to get into, not just at the schools, but on any call you go to.

Oh, and by the way, if you don’t have a working audio recorder, GET ONE. Even though we have in-car video and audio, the mics don’t work when my car is off or when I’m far away from it. For under $50, I bought a digital audio recorder that fits in my pocket and can record hundreds of hours of audio. I record EVERYTHING when I’m interacting with the public. Most of the time, I use this like my notebook – and everything gets deleted eventually, but in case something bad happens, or I receive an unwarranted allegation, I have something to use in my defense.

Use your verbal judo – always be professionalI love verbal judo, and I think it is superior to other spins on professional communication.
1) Ask for compliance. Ask repeatedly, in a polite and respectful tone. “Ma’am, the principal has told me you have to leave the class, will you please come with me to the office so we can talk? Your classmates want to get back to work.”

2) Explain options. I love telling people I don’t want to arrest them, that they can get up and leave on their own with no charges, or that it’s “only a ticket right now.” I love getting that on camera and in my report, because it shows that the suspect had plenty of opportunity to comply with a very reasonable request. Explain what their other choice is – that if they refuse to comply, they are going to face more serious charges. If they decide to resist, they will go to jail, they may get hurt and you don’t want them to get hurt. If you get hurt, in many states, even accidentally, they’ll get charged with a felony.

3) Ask them: “is there anything I can say or do that will get you to _________ willingly?” When people hear that on camera, how can they argue the officer didn’t give them every chance in the world? He asked specifically what he could do to get the suspect to follow a lawful order! What more can he do?!

4) Act. If you need to act, act quickly. Where I worked, we used #3 as a cue for the backup officer to start flanking the suspect. When the suspect responded “fuck off,” then we could surprise them and have them under control, usually before they knew we were coming.

Finally, don’t swear at the suspect. I used to swear a lot at suspects because I figured it was the “only language they understood.” You know what I learned? Someone who doesn’t want to get on the ground when you tell them “get on the ground” in your command voice is probably not going to get on the ground because you tell them “get on the fucking ground.” Sure it may be how they talk, and it may be the language they understand, but it’s not the language that someone’s grandmother is going to understand when she hears it on the 5 o’clock news. To her, you are going to look like an unprofessional, hot-headed, tyrannical jackass.

The world we live in….

Don’t fall victim to “contempt of cop” – and I’m not saying the SC officer did, but right now people are looking for any reason they can find to throw a good cop to the wolves. Don’t make it easy for them! The reality is we can do everything “right” legally and within policy, but have our careers ruined because of the judge, jury and executioner that is social media. We don’t need to change how we use force in order to make things “look” better for the public, we just have to be more careful about how we pick our battles, and how we set the context for those type of incidents. That way, when things do go south, the plot of the YouTube video just isn’t something that people will get excited about.

1 Comment

Great advice, good common sense approach. Everyone should act as if they are being recorded, I firmly believe the public would act different toward everyone they come in contact with being LEO or John Q, knowing your on video. Removing the audience would have been my first request, then an order if no compliance. Record everything video or audio with commentary is great advice and making it habitual even better!